


Growing Pains

by sloppy



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Awkward Crush, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 20:30:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4934236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloppy/pseuds/sloppy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yoon is a growing boy; he gains some inches, earns an insatiable appetite, and gets more restless in his sleep. One of these things may be more inconvenient than the others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Pains

**Author's Note:**

> Even if everyone forgets I will always remember that he has a Total Canonical Crush on her.

 

“Hey, Yoon, you’ve really grown, haven’t you?”

Yoon glanced back, irritated at first from being distracted from his mapping, then softened when he saw it was only Yona. He had been absorbed all morning into his work, toiling away to ensure the next passable route. No one was joking whenever they said they’d be lost without him.

“Huh? What’re you talking about?” The pages beneath his fingers stopped crinkling as he devoted his attention fully to the girl beside him. “Oh. You mean my height? Well, of course I have. I’m nearly taller than that Ouryuu of ours, you know.”

Yona gave a small pout, since obviously this was something she had been thinking over for a while. There was a little wrinkle above her brows. Yoon immediately averted his eyes down to his notes. “It makes me a little sad. Now I really _am_ the shortest! Yoon, you have to stop growing!”

He snorted facing the tiny tree doodles he had scribbled on one of the papers to represent the current forest they were in. “Don’t be idiotic, that’s not something I can control. Anyway, haven’t I always been taller than you?”

Tipping her head to the side in thought, she answered precariously, “No, we were the same height, I think.”

This proclamation made him rip away from his maps right away, shocked by her absolute _audacity_. “We were _not!_ I was totally taller than you!”

She retaliated in a way Yoon was reminded of how spoiled of a girl she used to be, probably still just as unnecessarily juvenile. “We were, too! Every time we talked, I didn’t have to look too far up or anything.”

Yoon sniffed haughtily, pride a little damaged. “Doesn’t matter. I practically _tower_ over you _now_. Shorty.”

“Ugh, Yoon, you’re a bully! Just because all you boys are so big…” Yona growled like an offended kitten, hands clenching in unconcealed rage.

He sighed suddenly, the weight behind her argument crashing down on him. Her passion truly was infectious, along with her childishness. No wonder that Thunder Beast couldn’t get a break. “Sorry. Yona, look, I’m not particularly a giant or anything, and I definitely can’t compare to any of the other beasts. It isn’t all that big of a deal. Just have to resew my clothes a little looser, is all.”

Her hands unclenched.

Yoon’s words seemed to iron out her anger and pacify her for a while, and together they finished up the last details of Yoon’s map. She remembered a small pond he had completely omitted and it caused him to reroute the entire plan, but it was beneficial in the end. He had always liked her company when they were alone, quiet and soft and unassuming. 

“Do you think you’ll still grow?”

He hummed absentmindedly, scratching out some things in the margin. “Yeah, probably. I’m only fifteen.”

“Yeah,” the princess mirrored, peering down below at the depths from the cliff where they stood. “Probably.”

 

* * *

 

There was something wrong with him. Yoon was _hungry_.

It wasn’t as if he had never starved before. To him, hunger was no foreign concept. He’d felt the twist of the gut, the dry mouth, the desperation—all before. Except, it was not exactly the same brand of hunger that he’d experienced at death’s door all those years ago. This feeling came in recently, and was almost…gluttonous. 

“Isn’t that the Lad’s third serving?” That annoyingly observant Ouryuu remarked one lunch, while everyone savored the surprisingly plentiful meal Yoon was able to whip up with all the ingredients they’d gathered the morning before. “How surprising!”

Yoon held in a click of the tongue and said, “Since there’re more than usual, it’d be a waste not to eat it all. Most of the food I used is perishable, so we can’t preserve them as easily.”

He dipped his spoon into the stew, readying himself for a bite of the fleshy salmon Shin-Ah had caught barehanded, before he noticed that everyone was staring at him. 

“ _What?_ ” Yoon asked, irritated, dropping the spoon at once. 

“Our poor mother must be starving,” Jae-Ha began, already finished with his own food and was nudging his spoon around in circles within his empty bowl. “Have we been neglecting you?”

Shin-Ah relinquished his headdress to Yoon, which Yoon did not accept. Ao submerged herself within the fur and didn’t surface until Shin-Ah plucked her out of there and placed her on his lap, where she played inside his equally hollow bowl he completed after his fourth serving.

“It’s no surprise, Zeno,” spoke Kija over Yoon’s head, as if he wasn’t even there. “Yoon is at that stage already. He’ll need good amounts of protein if he wants to be healthy.”

“Our baby’s growing up,” Hak teased, ignoring Yona’s little hand slap. 

“How could I be both your baby _and_ your mother?”

“So he admits to being a mother,” Jae-Ha added sneakily. 

“I don’t remember giving birth to such stupid beasts!”

“Yoon,” Yona called, lifting her half-full bowl in offering, “Do you want the rest of mine? I’m really full. You did a good job again today!”

He stared at her outreached bowl, stew still steaming, and his eyes slid down from the wooden container to her calloused fingers, scratches still healing from the last time she wielded a sword too heavy and held a bow too big. He stared and he stared and only looked up to the setting sky’s orange clouds when he actually _heard_ his stomach growl. 

Hak, sitting next to her, prodded her lightly with his elbow. “No one wants your gross leftovers.”

But even before the words had left the Thunder Beast’s mouth, Yoon’s hand had already reached out and snatched the bowl, imperceptibly brushing her skin. He assumed his cheeks were flushed an ugly pink but he didn’t say anything, even as he poured Yona’s stew hurriedly into his own, now overflowing. Yoon refused to meet anyone’s gaze and drank it all in one sitting. 

He stood up immediately, murmured something about how everyone better wash their own dishes, and sped into his tent under the ruse of unpacking.

The last thing he heard before he pulled down the thick flap entrance was Jae-Ha’s vexatious guffaw, never ending. 

 

* * *

 

It was actually highly possible Yoon was suffering from the gods’ punishment. 

Waking up in full sweat in the _ungodly_ hours of the night feeling a throbbing pain in his leg—his aggressive shuffling stirring Yona from her sleep—made him truly believe that this was some kind of divine retribution he must face atonement for reasons beyond him. The mere fact that there was a probably-reincarnated-god-princess lying down to his left reinforced his fear. 

“Yoon!” Yona sat up when she saw him cringing. “Yoon, are you alright?”

He flattened his leg across their sheets and sighed with resignation. “I’m fine. It’s just cramps, it’ll go away.”

“Do you want me to wake the others?”

“No!” His answer came swiftly. He could only imagine that the rest would make it much more unbearable than it actually was. “I’m fine.”

Yona whirled away from him and began shifting through Yoon’s rucksack. She procured a handkerchief which she pressed against his forehead. He went rigid. She wiped the rest of the sweat off his face with complete concentration. He refused to breathe. Yoon could see every curve and shine on her cheeks—she was too close. 

“I said I’m _fine_ , Yona,” he reiterated, trying to put as much sternness into his voice as he could. He pushed away her hand and said, “Go back to sleep. We need to get up early tomorrow.”

Still frowning, Yona pulled back and dug back into her blanket. “Yoon, are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” replied Yoon, following suit and laying back down onto the ground. The pain dimmed drastically and only left an imperceptible prick. “It’s only growing pains, not anything serious.”

“That’s good!” she expressed, turning her head so that they faced each other. “That means you’ll grow taller now. Isn’t that good, Yoon?”

He didn’t answer right away, because for the first time since they began traveling with each other, Yoon realized something. Why he hadn’t before, he didn’t know, but now, as she spoke to him in low whispers and the night crickets made their cries outside and her knee touched his beneath the sheets, there was no way to deny it.

Yona…really was warm.

Yoon swiveled around until Yona was only facing his back. “Sure. Whatever. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!”

He fell asleep with her curling up against his back and cursing the names of the dragon gods in his head like a mantra. 


End file.
